Uncategorized – Page 380

Dover Beach

The weather today was very unpleasant, with driving rain and blustery winds. I found myself agreeing to a trip to Highcliffe. After all, we were going to get wet anyway, so why not at the seaside?

Jackie drove me to the clifftop and pointed out the Isle of Wight, quite near, but only just discernible in the grey gloom. She thought I might want a nice bracing walk along the seashore. I thought I might wander around a new town. In fact I did both. We agreed a meeting time and point. I left her heading for a carpark as I set off along the high street. Having realised that Highcliffe town centre had far more than it’s share of House Clearance Specialists, Charity Shops, and Funeral Directors, I decided I wasn’t quite ready for it, and turned back to the coast. The wind furling and unfurling The Solent was so strong that it held me up as I descended from the upper level. On my return, it helped me up. Seagulls were drinking from rainwater puddles in a park. I’ve never thought of it before, but perhaps they don’t drink seawater.

Waves crashed against the stone breakwaters, one of which was having its ingredients arranged by a grabbing crane. It’s flag fluttered violently. Foaming spume clung to the pebbles and the rocks, quivering until the gusts of wind ripped chunks off it and flung them into the air to land on grass some distance away, like anaemic candyfloss fallen from a child’s fairground treat. Then I heard the sound of pebbles on Dover Beach. Matthew Arnold’s poem of that name had entranced me in my teens as he described ‘…the grating roar of pebbles on the beach……….. begin and cease, and then begin again, with tremulous cadence slow….’. The ‘begin and cease’ seemed to me perfectly to catch the sliding of pebbles grating together as the water slipped back down the beach ready for the next assault. Through the buffeting of the wind and the clashing of the sea against the breakwaters a snatch of that music came to me as if in a vacuum and brought back a poem I hadn’t read for more than fifty years.

After meeting Jackie we had a late afternoon main meal of gammon steaks and sticky toffee pudding in the Globe Inn, during which I learned that she had done the rounds of the Charity and House Clearance shops and bought a number of treasures for our new home. We returned to one and bought a beautifully made oval brass Indian tray table. I told the proprietor his shop looked like my Mum’s sitting room. He replied that a lot of people had said that.

This evening I read a bit more of A.L.Rowse’s ‘The England of Elizabeth which I had begun a couple of days ago.

Rufus Stone

Just as I was preparing for today’s walk, Jackie set my pulses racing. She informed me that there were no instructions for the assembly of the IKEA bed. As I reached for my mobile phone she found them hidden away in one of the boxes.

I calmed down and set off to cross the A31 in search of an historic monument. After studying this, I carried on through Brook to the B3079 from where I retraced my steps back to Minstead.

As a truly ancient monument, the Rufus Stone lacks a certain authenticity. However, the legend on the obelisk that stands on an allegedly historic spot has saved me a certain amount of writing. All I would add to this inscription is that King William was a son of William the Conqueror, and that the authenticity of the story will never be established. Whether Sir Walter’s shot was an accident or an assassination has been the subject of speculative debate for centuries. I must say that anyone venturing off the A31 in a westerly direction to take the turn off to see the ‘stone’ is taking a very risky manoeuvre. It is marginally more dangerous to carry this out by car than it is to do it on foot.

A little further along the road to Brook the Sir Walter Tyrrell inn bears a sign commemorating the legendary event.

Brook itself seems to be a small hamlet. I do not know the derivation of its name, but interestingly, although it is on high ground, there is a ford and footbridge on the road beneath it.

I wondered what the jacketed horse in a field made of its free ranging relative grazing on the grass by the wayside.

When I returned to flat 4 Jackie had begun to assemble the bed. We completed the operation, which was remarkably smooth, after lunch, before setting off for Aldi in Romsey where, according to Which magazine, we should find a well recommended Christmas pudding. Naturally that wasn’t all we bought. Now Jackie has a decent sized fridge and freezer there is no stopping her, especially with the festive season coming up.

As we were in Romsey it made sense to visit the Purbani restaurant we had discovered two years ago. On that occasion my poppadom theory was tested and found not to be foolproof. The hypothesis is that the quality of the poppadoms is a good indication of what is to follow. Crisp, warm, poppadoms with fresh, tasty, pickles means the rest of the meal will be good, and vice versa. On our first visit the poppadoms were so limp that I had to send them back. They were changed without question, and our meals were excellent. Today everything was fresh, well cooked, and flavoursome. As we had arrived before they opened, we had a drink in the Oak Tree pub, a small, homely, establishment which was, complete with strobe lighting, preparing for a twenty first birthday party. That is probably why Jackie couldn’t finish her Kingfisher, and I struggled with my Cobra.

IKEA 3 (R18)

On this clear, cold, and sunny morning I took yesterday’s walk in reverse. Smoking chimneys enlivened the line of the horizon. Distant cattle lowed; cocks crowed; steam rose from one sunlit ditch whilst a blackbird spuddled in another; the occasional cyclist whirred, and the occasional car sped, past. Otherwise it was just me and the ponies.

Walking back through London Minstead, I was greeted by another Father Christmas (see yesterday’s post). The word must have got around.

Later in the morning we decided to assemble our IKEA bed. Extracting the headboard, Jackie realised it was too wide to fit our carefully measured space. Too wide by 17cm. I got out all the paperwork and checked the identification numbers on the boxes against the measurements given on both our Self Service Picking List and the Sales Receipt. Consistently shown on each docket and on each box are the measurements 140 x 200; thus the three bed frame items are marked BED FRM 140 x 200. Our bedstead was 157cm wide.

Now, as my readers know, I will always find the humorous side of any situation. If it is possible. We were not amused. Not in the least. I reached for my phone and dialled customer services. A machine warned me that there was a waiting time for calls being answered from between 20 and 30 minutes. After being notified for the second time that I was number 13 in the queue, I blew a gasket and was all for going straight back to IKEA there and then. In the meantime, Jackie had consulted a 2013 catalogue which she had picked up on departure from the store. She found the bed frames listed as 157 x 211cm. These were to take a 140 x 200 mattress. If that were so, then why are the boxes and documentation for the frames given as 140 x 200? And why didn’t our extremely helpful shop assistant not make this clear? Did she know any more than we did? I was no calmer. They could have the whole lot back and refund all the money including delivery charge.

Jackie, however, remained calm and thought again about the layout of the room. If we moved a portable cupboard and brought the bed up to the large French windows we could just about make it feasible. We could squeeze past the bed to open the windows when necessary. What we couldn’t have was a bedhead jutting into the doorway. So far, so good. All we have to do now is put it all together. Tomorrow.

After lunch we drove to Totton for a vast Lidl shop. In the process we found a very good quality double airbed for 10% of the cost of the IKEA bed. So we bought one. There is plenty of room in the sitting room for this, which means we can now accomodate two couples. We had momentarily considered that we should have had an airbed for the spare room and still sent the IKEA one back. Then we remembered nights in Louisa and Errol’s spare single room on a double air mattress on the floor with no way of heaving ourselves up because there was no space around the bed, and thought better of it. Have you ever tried to prise yourself up from the middle of an airbed whilst in intense pain from a hip requiring replacement?

Before dinner I made a few amendments to my next Independent crossword puzzle scheduled for 27th. We then ate spare ribs in barbecue sauce with vegetable rice followed by baklavas. Jackie, having taken the entire contents of Lidl shelves, drank Hoegaarden, and I consumed Cono Sur reserva 2010, an excellent wine of which, unfortunately, we cannot remember the source.

Deceptive Appearances

Orlaith Beth came in at 9lb 5oz. She is expected home with her Mum today.

This morning I walked along Seamans Lane and through London Minstead to Shave Wood, turning right there and back to Minstead, emerging at Football Green whence I walked back home via the Village Shop where I bought tickets for tonight’s play at Minstead Hall.

Although there is still much colour in the forest, many deciduous trees are now almost devoid of leaves. Their branches fan out, one, for example, tracing the outline of a Spanish senorita’s fully extended cooling accessory.

Driving along this route a couple of days ago our way had been blocked by six cattle, four of whom had their front halves buried in hedges, in the manner of the one pictured on 12th November. Today I think I spotted the reason for the fascination of hedges. Much of the land on the far sides of these hedges lies at a higher level, and the lazy cows don’t have to bend down for their fodder. I assume the tag on the pictured animal’s ear indicates to which verderer this protected wanderer belongs.

Further on, Jackie had pointed out another primeval creature she had seen the day before. The pony which had been grazing alongside this relic of pre-history seemed to have crossed the road and was now consorting with a giant Galapagos tortoise.

Leaving Minstead behind as I approached Castle Malwood Lodge I met the man I am due to impersonate on 1st December. He was in civvies, of course. He encouraged me to persevere with my less prolific growth and suggested I gave his picture the caption: ‘This is what I aspire to be’.

Early this evening the bed we bought yesterday was delivered by IKEA. A next day delivery as promised went some way towards improving our feeling about the company. All we have to do is assemble it. Coincidentally, we learned from Becky that the wardrobe we left behind for her in Links Avenue has been collected by Mat and Ian. Jackie and I had assembled that when we moved in there eighteen months ago.

It was touch and go whether we would be able to attend the performance of ‘Dish of The Day’ by Christine Woodhead, for which I had purchased tickets this morning, because we had to wait in for the deliverymen. But we made it, after Jackie had produced a meal of omelettes and baked beans. We finished the wines begun two days ago.

The performance was an hilarious one by the local Minstead Players. The piece was well written, set in an Italian restaurant run solely by a woman clearly modelled on Julie Walters’ Mrs. Overall who did, indeed, turn out to be the cleaner. The three tables were occupied by a couple with an elderly mother, three young women on a hen night, and a dating agency rendezvous. One rather clever moment was when one person from each table simultaneously received a call on their mobile phone, and the individual conversations fitted together as if they were all three speaking to each other.

IKEA 2 (18)

Yesterday evening Holly’s baby girl was born, after a long labour and eventual Caesarian section. All is well, but we await further news once the little family have recovered.

Fog beset the forest today, lending a sense of the Gothic to Castle Malwood Lodge. Moisture dripping from the boughs plipped and plopped onto their plentiful plumage carpeting the ground.

I took Seamans Lane to London Minstead, turned right into Bull Lane, and right again at a junction which took me back to Minstead. Having left by ‘lower’ drive, I returned in the direction of ‘upper’, turning right just before I arrived there. This led me to our nearest neighbours in Hollybrae. I then trudged into the woods following the line of our drive, eventually recognising our garden shrubbery. I couldn’t just walk into the garden which was surrounded by a wire fence. I continued until I reached the road leading to ‘lower’ drive. There were no footpaths, so this wasn’t exactly straightforward. Beautiful as is a carpet of autumn leaves, you cannot tell what is underneath them. In some places the answer was ‘not much’. So I got a bit soggy. My wellies and walking shoes being at The Firs, my suit trousers got a bit damp.

This afternoon we returned to IKEA. Yes, we went back for more. We’ve got the journey sussed and now knew where we’d gone wrong in parking. We also knew that beds were on level 4. We had measured the space and realised the IKEA doubles would just fit into the spare room. The one we preferred would not, we realised, do. This is because one side would have to go against a wall. This means whoever sleeps on that side, if needing to, as Chaucer put it ‘rise for a piss’, having in any case to bottom-slide down the bed to get out, would have come up against an ornate bed-end. I thought about that in the middle of the night. There had to be no bed-end.

Driving to level 4 was, in itself, an experience. Imagine driving one way up a helter-skelter or a spiral staircase. Steering was scary, and when we got to the top it was best not to look down over the railings separating us from the streets below and Southampton harbour. Not if you have my head for heights.

When Jackie picked up a trolley on our way in I was a wee bit alarmed. ‘I might want to buy something’ was her explanation. We chose our bed fairly quickly and went through the process of identifying the various parts. For anyone having the good fortune to be ignorant of the IKEA process, it is as follows. You are given identifying codes and numbers which tell you where, in rows of aisles on the ground floor, to find your purchases. Apparently collecting your purchases is known as ‘picking’. We know that because, had we wanted someone to do the ‘picking’ of the bed for us we could have paid a bit extra for it. Which might have been a wise move. In the event.

Before we got to that, we, of course, had to follow the IKEA maze, which meant passing other potential purchases, like door-stops, plates, duvets, pillows, sheets, duvet covers, coat hooks, and rugs. Well, I guess you know by now why Jackie wanted her trolley.

‘Picking’ the bed for our guest bedroom was an experience. I do hope those of you who will try it out will appreciate the effort involved. What you do when you ‘pick’ is go to level 1 where, if you very carefully follow the arrows, you will find numbered aisles. Rather like most of our street numbering, evens are on one side and odds on the other, so if, as in our case, one bit of your bed was in aisle 16 and the next bit in aisle 17, you would have to shove a heavily loaded trolley across the road, which was in fact filled with other goods. Actually we only bought one bed, but the bits were in three different aisles. And the first bit was in three differently numbered boxes. And we couldn’t find these at first because they were buried under heavy mirrors in containers which had fallen over from the next ‘location’. I should have said that in each of these aisles there are 30+ locations. Our mattress, for example, was in location 32, that is at the furthest end of the aisle. Loading that onto the trolley, on wheels, but with no brakes, was no mean feat.

During the two hours we spent in, with the possible exception of Carlsberg, Scandinavia’s most popular export, I realised that one of the most energy-sapping aspects of this store is the tropical, airless, atmosphere. How the staff manage, I do not know. Given the temperatures in Sweden, you may think this rather surprising.

Having ‘picked’ and paid for our bed we wheeled the various parts on the trolley to the Home Delivery and Assembly desk. Now, we already had a large supermarket type trolley loaded with the items mentioned above. And the flat trolley containing mattress, bed-head, and all the other pieces which make up a double bed, extended too much for me to push on my own. This meant that we each took a handle of that trolley and Jackie pushed the other with her other hand. A number of people coming towards us tried to walk past without making way. This was rather difficult.

The thought that IKEA would actually assemble our piece of furniture was very exciting. Anyone who has assembled such items themself will understand why. It was one thing to build something out of Meccano for fun, quite another to attempt to follow instructions to put a bed together. So. It was a great disappointment to be told by the young lady on the home delivery desk that they didn’t do it any more. I pointed out the sign behind her, suggesting that if they didn’t do it they should take down that sign and all the much larger, upper case, signs which had led us to her. This rather discombobulated the young woman who felt the need to go off and check her facts. She returned, somewhat embarrassed, and confirmed that she was right. The small print in the sign states that it is their partners who do the assembling and she could give me the number to ring. But, as I said, the heading claims they do it themselves and is misleading. And needs removing. And she should tell someone that she had a customer complaining. And I don’t suppose she will. As Jackie says, it gives a whole other meaning to the phrase ‘we’ve made up a bed for you’.

This evening we dined on fillet steak purchased in the Lyndhurst butchers, which was much more successful than his only half-cooked pork pie. Dessert and wines were the same as yesterday.

Silence

I hate banks. Between them, two have wasted my morning.

First, I received a phone call from Barclays in France. I was €200 overdrawn. How was that when I had transferred plenty by Urgent on-line Transfer on 4th? My conversation with the caller led us to the realisation that Barclays France had changed BIC and IBAN numbers without telling me.

Why did this not surprise me? This would not be the first time they had made changes without notifying me. One example was transferring my account from Bergerac to Paris. There have been other issues. NatWest don’t operate in France. So I was stuck with Barclays.

When I had finished with the Frenchman, I checked my on-line statement. Sure enough the payment appeared on it. This meant a call to NatWest who were experiencing more than usual demand. This meant listening to music and robotic apologies for ages. Eventually I heard the voice of a real person. He was very helpful, but he had to liaise with another department several times. More music. And more music. Although the payment request had been received it didn’t work with the older BIC and IBAN, so it was in the hands of an investigative department. The advisor took the new details.

Because this last conversation had taken so long I received three timing out prompts on the computer. Each time I took the ‘stay on line’ option.

At the end of the call I found I couldn’t obtain any response from NatWest on line banking.

I telephoned once more. More music; more warnings about heavy demand; suggestions that I might like to try the on-line service. Eventually I was answered by someone in another department who tried various options to unravel the problem. This time liaising with his on-line colleagues. More music, each time; more apologies, etc., etc. Finally he told me they were experiencing technical problems affecting lots of customers. This, of course, was why there was so much demand. He advised me to try again later in the day.

Just as we made our farewells. My helper received a prompt advising him to try to interest me in an ISA. He was not able to.

Leaden skies have made for a very dull day on which the sun never opened its oppressive grey drapes.

Scotland’s acclaimed novelist, James Kennaway died in a car crash, believed to have been brought on by a heart attack, in 1968. He was 40 years old. His visceral, nightmarish, novella, ‘Silence’, was published in 1972 through the administrations of his widow, Susan. I read the final pages this afternoon. It is perhaps fortuitous that I picked it off my shelves after having finished reading ‘Schindler’s Ark’. Both deal with extremes of humanity’s violence; Kennaway sets his work of fiction in times of racial tension in America during the 1960s; Keneally’s style is far more factual. In the novella two races are equally violent; in the faction one is hell bent on destroying the other. Fifty years on we are beset by news of racial hatred and the atrocities it promotes, and the euphemism ‘ethnic cleansing’ has come into world languages. I have scanned both covers of my 1977 Penguin edition. Accessing the gallery with a click should, if necessary, make the blurbs easier to read. The portrait was made by Harri Peccinotti.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s colourful sausage casserole, crisp carrots and broccoli, and creamy mashed potato and swede. She drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Camino Nuevo.

Autumn

This morning I walked back to Lyndhurst, and in the process discovered where I had gone wrong yesterday. In the gloom of evening I had not seen a road sign. Jackie and I rendezvoused in the car park and completed the mail redirection process in the Post Office. We then had a wander around the town, making a few purchases, including a fine pair of leather gloves in the Age UK shop.

Ponies and cattle possessed the road, as nonchalently chomping away and wandering down the street through Minstead, as usual. At one point I helped out the driver of a small white van patiently waiting for a gap to open between a cow and calf so that he could squeeze through. It just wasn’t going to happen until I walked towards the pair prompting the calf to set off down the road. The adult, its head in a hedge, took no notice.

By the time we returned to Castle Malwood, what had begun as a rather murky day had metamorphosed into a gloriously clear, bright, seasonal one. We have learned that the two drives off the forest roads leading to our building are called ‘upper’ and ‘lower’. As we straddled the bars of the cattle grid at the ‘upper’ entrance we were both entranced by the leaf-carpeted bank beside it. I reflected, as I have done many times this week, that we are so fortunate to be arriving, in the autumn of our years, at such a picturesque area in such a spectacular season.

After another afternoon sorting out our new home we dined on a fabulous beef stew Jackie made. I was a little disappointed because I had seen her buy a blackberry and apple pie in Lyndhurst and thought that would be for our pud. It wasn’t, because we had no custard or cream. This was not really a problem. I just had another helping of stew. Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I imbibed Marques de Montino rioja reserva 2007.

Any Van

Today we moved to Minstead. Up before seven we continued packing. The removal men arrived twenty minutes early and sat and waited outside until the appointed time of eight o’clock. This courtesy was extended throughout the move. Two men, possibly Polish, friendly and helpful, worked at a great rate loading the van; arrived at Castle Malwood soon after we did; and cheerfully unloaded in continuous drizzling rain, unfazed by the fact that they had to walk across soggy grass peppered with rabbit poo, carrying all our furniture and belongings. I was quite chuffed to be able to use my previous incarnation as a furniture remover by suggesting that a desk which refused to go through the door to the sitting room would possibly go through the window, It did.

This has been the most efficient and economical move I have experienced in the last few years. It was arranged on line at http://www.anyvan.com, a service I would thoroughly recommend. Within an hour of posting our details and requirements I received four quotations all within £35 of each other. The successful bidder phoned me and we fixed a date which was adhered to. The man’s name was Andy, and his firm was Easy Move. When a Globe Removals van turned up I assumed Andy, who introduced himself as he arrived on the doorstep, had hired his van from Globe Removals. As we said farewell, his dark and my white hair plastered to our heads by the rain, I noticed he sported a Globe Removals logo discretely placed on his T-shirt. I said I thought his firm was Easy Move, yet he was wearing a Globe Removals T-shirt. He laughed and explained that there were two Andys. They each ran removal firms and exchanged jobs when necessary.

Facing the task of unpacking was just too much. After we had collapsed and relaxed for a while, it was off to The Trusty Servant for lunch.

On the way we realised that our new home was surrounded by primaeval creatures. We arrived there just after 2.30 to learn that food stops being served then. The chef was in the bar and he said he was still there so we could have food. What a contrast, as we told him, to our experience at The Flower Pots Inn on 1st October. We were given excellent ploughman’s lunches; Jackie had draft Budweiser and I drank Doom Bar. Then it was back to Castle Malwood to do a bit of unpacking before going to Elizabeth’s for the evening. Apart from a wonderful roast chicken meal served with Hardy’s Stamp of Australia shiraz, cabernet sauvignon 2011 and, in Jackie’s case, Stella; followed by minced pies and custard, we needed showers at The Firs because we have no hot water at No.4. A contractor is coming in the morning to see what he can do.

On our return to our new flat we passed a cow in a hedge.

Armistice Day

Sitting with our coffee in bed this morning Jackie and I watched runnels of condensation trickling down the surfaces of the misty window panes. They produced streaks of blue sky penetrating the grainy grey film. We then began to describe the patterned patina depicting fern and snowflake designs that had covered the inside of wintry windows of our childhoods. In those days central heating warming the insides of houses in contrast to the cold air outside was not common. Moisture from our breathing simply froze on contact with sub-zero temperatures. Tracing the geometric shapes then fully visible and now revealed in microscopic snowflake pics compensated for waking up in freezing rooms with tingling ears and noses. Lovely swirly ferns curled across the panes in magical formations. When very young we had not known how they got there. David Jason had not even thought of playing Jack Frost in the TV detective series ‘A Touch of Frost’, but we knew all about the freezing fingers of the mysterious ‘Jack Frost’, which had allegedly produced the glistening traces on the glass.

It was then that I learned my firelighting skills that Louisa is so disparaging about. I’ll have you know, dear daughter, that my fires may have required several hours on hands and knees breathing life into a few bits of stick and crumpled paper through a gap in the grate, with a poker behind a sheet of newspaper to draw the flames, but they did actually catch alight in the end. We probably should have invested in a set of bellows. I could not be as profligate as your brother Sam with wood and fire-lighters, because a Raynes Park maisonette was not as well supplied as was Lindum House.

Throughout the Lindum House years we supplemented the central heating system with open coal fires, largely because I wanted to relive the experience of my childhood; in particular Christmas around such a fire in such a similar house as was my grandparents’. Chestnuts could be roasted and bread toasted in and by the fluid flames which flickered around the red coals. Louisa may feel she has ‘inherited (her) Dad’s rubbish skills’ at laying a fire, but I hope she is proud to be continuing such a long tradition. Actually we didn’t toast much bread by the fires. It was far easier to use electric toasters which had not been available in the 1940s.

On this glorious Armistice Day, there was not a cloud in the brilliant blue sky as we drove back to Morden for our final stage of packing. We listened in silence to radio 4’s broadcast of the Whitehall ceremony. As Jackie stopped the car for us to observe the two minute’s silence I thought, as if still a child, of Remembrance Sundays with Auntie Gwen, during those post-Mass breakfasts with my godmother that I have mentioned before (see 25th May). It was an awesome two minutes that we always observed, listening for the cannon’s thump that seemed to shake the windows. Traditionally we honour those who died in battle on the nearest Sunday to 11th November. This Sunday is the 11th.

The afternoon and early evening were spent not finishing the packing. There was a bottle of Roc des Chevaliers with a glassful left in it. Well, you couldn’t pack that, could you? So, I drank it. We then went off to Becky’s to leave her a key to number 40 where we are leaving a wardrobe for Matthew to collect and deliver to her in the week. From there we went with Becky, Ian and Flo to The Ravensbury Arms on Mitcham Common for Sunday Roast dinners. I was delighted to find, for the second time in recent days, Sharp’s Doom Bar ale.

A very unusual doorstop was being applied to the communal gated entrance to Becky’s block of flats.

Becky’s Duvet

This morning was spent on more packing up. At lunchtime, with the help of Paul at number 34 we loaded up the car and visited the Martin Cafe for a fry-up before setting off to Minstead to unload.

Now, during Jackie’s many years spent working as a carer in Merton she learned the safest techniques for lifting clients. This was, of course, in the days when non-nursing staff were permitted to ruin their backs by lifting inert or, worse, struggling elderly or handicapped people in or out of bed. No longer being willing either to watch me struggling with boxes full of books and equally heavy items or to take her half across the lawn either at Morden or Castle Malwood, she decided to put her mind to labour saving. So, in the midst of the packingfest she would take time out to sit on the sofa and think.

Then she came up with a brilliant idea. She would make a sling from a duvet cover. Just as those clients years ago had been hoisted out of bed, our boxes could be hoisted in and out of the car and carted across the grasses at no cost to our elderly backs.

The chosen item of bedding had been our daughter’s. When Becky came up to live in Lindum House in Newark in the mid 1990s I bought her the cover in harmony with the colour scheme of the room which was to be hers for the next three years. It has served us well.

After decanting more belongings into Castle Malwood Lodge, we repaired to The Firs where Elizabeth was in the process of producing a lamb chop meal to be followed by a Firs Mess. Hoegaarden anno 1445 was also consumed by Jackie whilst my sister and I drank Hardy’s Stamp of Australia shiraz, cabernet sauvignon 2011.